Lie: Men don't shed tears at movies

If you are going to watch a movie anytime soon...go see this.  If at all possible, go with your spouse and take some kleenex with you.  This was a very touching movie!  Click on the image below for more info. 

Sore Throat!! But well worth it!

Those who missed out (17):

Wanda, Matt, Abe, Jason, Dixon, Zach, Aaron, Nate, Dan, Oscar, Steve, Nick, Austin, Justin, Ben D, Ben S, Tom

The lucky one (1): Terry 

The unfaithful: The two people sitting next to me that left in the middle of the fourth inning saying the game was over (and a few others who didn't have faith in the Twins)

The game last night was the best one I have been to this year.  A sold out game (47K people).  Standing the entire 8th, 9th, and 10th innings.  A great rally to come back from being behind by 5 points.  Getting in the lead by 0.5 games in the AL Central Division. An all around awesome game.  I hope I don't have many meetings tomorrow because my throat is extremely sore and I don't think I will have much of a voice tomorrow!  

We walk out of the metrodome and the people outside are still cheering.  We get to the parking ramp and everyone is cheering by honking their horns.  We are driving down the road and people are still cheering and honking their horns.  The environment was a lot of fun!

Go Twins!!!

The tickets have been purchased and I am ready to go

Wanda and I ventured down to Roseville yesterday and bought ourselves 2 tickets to the Twins game on Thursday night.  These next 3 games are crucial for the Twins so hopefully they won't disappoint.  It should be a lot of fun and it will most likely be our last Twins game this season.

They have yet to lose when we were at the game this season so maybe we should have bought tickets for all 3 nights...but that is just pushing my luck!

New Google Offerings

Being the Google FanBoy that I am, I found a few new toys to play with and thought I would share them with you:

Google Chrome - This is Google's new Internet Browser.  There are many features that I really like.  One thing I like about Google is they think out of the box and think of ways to improve stuff in a way that truly makes sense.  It just came out and it is in Beta.  There are some issues that I have found so I can't use it for some of the things I do, but for the most part, I do really like it.  It definitly seems to give me more real estate on the screen for the webpage and very little for the browser.  Give it a try (you don't have to make it your default browser).

Google Maps By Walking/Transit - This is another feature that is still in Beta, but is worth a try...especially if you like to walk or happen to be in walking distance of something (especially useful if you are downtown).  Enter your two destinations into Google Maps and then in the dropdown you have a few options: By Car, By Walking, and By Public Transit  (Walking and Public Transit are the two items  in beta so there could be issues).  If you choose By Walking you will usually see a different route than By Car because you aren't constrained to One Ways (plus it will most likely give you the shortest distance).

Google Forms - Integrated into their Google Documents is a new feature called Forms.  From here you can create a quick form for people to fill out (lots of options on how you want to create it and what features are available on the form).  Once it is ready, you can send the form to whomever you want.  In the email they can click on a link to open your form and fill it out.  Once filled out, the data goes straight into a Google Documents Spreadsheet which tracks the data for you.  You can even get a "prettier" formatted version of the results.  I tried this out for the first time with my cell group the other day...now I just need to get them all to fill it out!  If you have a questionare you want to give to a group of people, this may just be a slick way to do it.

 

Gracefest and Church

Wanda and I went to Gracefest yesterday and they are estimating that around 1400 people showed up!!!  That is awesome!  We weren't planning on staying too long but then I got involved with throwing water balloons for the Water Balloon Baseball and we ended up staying till the end of the events.  Oh...did I tell you that out of those 1400 names my name was the first to be drawn in the prize drawing at Gracefest?  I am going to be enjoying those 2 free Chipotle burritos later this week!  Guess I can't say I never win anything anymore.

Today there were a few changes put in place at church:

1. A new 3rd service (meaning 3 new service times)
2. A new worship director
3. Xpedition and the Salt & Pepper class began a new joint quarter together
4. Helping out with a new service area.

For me it started with Xpedition.  I have been looking forward to this quarter for a while now and from everyone I have talked with, they really like the idea of a joint class.  We had a total of 93 people in the class today!  About 45-50 of those where with Xpedition and the rest were with S&P.  Steve did a great job getting us to talk at the table and discuss things at our tables.  It got a bit noisy, but I have some ideas to help with that a little.  I think the first class was a success and from talking with many of the people in S&P at lunch today, they thought so too.

Wanda and I are going to be attending the 3rd service in which I will be Ushering.  I will help out with handing out bulletins at the beginning, helping out with any offerings, and then helping out as needed throughout the service.  This Winter Wanda and I may also be helping with the kids during first hour.

The new worship director did a great job and I really enjoyed the service.  I really liked the closing song as well.  From what I heard from Steve, it sounds like the 3 services as a whole also went very well.

What did you guys think of the joint class and of the 3rd service opportunity/times?  Did you like it? Do you have any suggestions to make it better?